One of the key attributes of a baseball player is the player's ability to pitch and throw consistently and accurately. This is a skill that is most often developed over time and through long hours of practice. It starts when a youngster begins to play baseball and the pitching and throwing skills that are developed are often done so in the backyard where two people simply throw to each other. These pitching and throwing skills are of course refined and improved through organized play. However, when it comes to pitching and throwing, there is little substitute for practice. As pointed out above, one of the most common forms of practicing is carried out by two players essentially playing catch, that is one player throwing to the other and the other returning the throw. This, if practiced over time, can and will enhance a player's pitching skills as well as his or her basic throwing skills.
This form of practice does have a drawback. It requires two people and, or course, this means that a youngster who happens to desire to improve his pitching and throwing skills may not always have a playmate at hand in order to hone these skills.
In the prior art, there are known practice devices that have been designed to enable one person to practice his or her pitching or throwing skills with a baseball. For example, one common practice aid in this area is referred to as a rebound net. Essentially, the player throws the baseball against a rebound net and once the baseball strikes the rebound net, the baseball is rebounded back from the net. These devices have a number of shortcomings. First, they do not have a well-defined target area that allows the player to know for sure that he or she is hitting a specified target area. Next, the target area is not adjustable and therefore it is difficult to simulate a varying strike zone for a pitcher. Next, the rebound net is not a very effective way at managing pitched or thrown baseballs. This is because it is difficult to predict the area that the baseball will be rebounded to. Consequently it becomes a very time consuming and sometimes frustrating chore for the individual practicing to retrieve the baseballs and because of this many young baseball players are not encouraged to practice with such device.
Besides rebound devices, it has been known to provide other types of practice aids for those wishing to improve their baseball pitching and throwing skills. For example, see the disclosures of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,473,227; 4,826,164; 5,083,774; 5,511,775; and 4,210,326. Still these baseball pitching and throwing practice aids have the same shortcomings and drawbacks discussed above. In particular, they do not have an adjustable strike zone or target area and besides they are often large, cumbersome and difficult to handle and move from one location to another.
Therefore, there has been and continues to be a need for baseball pitching and throwing practice aid that includes an adjustable strike zone or target area and which is light weight and easy to handle.